Category: Productivity

Are You Accepting Your Future… Or Creating It?

No one can predict the future. The future is created by the actions we take. If we change our actions, we can change our future.

The end of 2016 is quickly approaching. The plans and goals we set for this year will either be accomplished or missed. I hope your year has been as successful and great as the vision you had last January.

I like to use this time of the year to reflect on the process I use to drive my results. Before I begin to define my goals for next year, I can improve my habits that drive my results. For 2017 to be better than 2016, we can’t just do the same things. Results only improve when you take actions to improve them. Here are some questions to think about as you prepare for next year.

1. Do you have a process to set goals that will make a difference in your life?

2. Do you have a process to review your progress?

3. Do you have a process to reflect on failure and success?

4. Do you have a process to adjust your plans if needed?

5. Do you have a process to celebrate small wins during the year?

6. Do you have a process to quantitatively measure your results?

7. Do you have a process for assessing your resources and fully utilizing them?

8. Do you have a process for prioritizing your actions to align with your goals?

That list of question may seem intimidating. The word “process” in every question reflects the requirement that achievement happens through the daily and weekly effort that you expend. It doesn’t happen by a stroke of luck.

I hope these questions have given you some ideas that will help you prepare for 2017, and where your normal process can improve. If you need help getting started, send me a message.

Just Getting Things Done

Recently when looking over my to-do list, I discovered a few items that have been on there for an extended period of time. I would imagine that if you did the same, you might find a couple old actions on your list also.

How does that happen? I diligently track my actions and projects. However, it just seems that some plans never become urgent enough to drive me to action. But they still needed to be done. Sound familiar?

The items that lingered on my list were not things that were difficult, or even overwhelming. They had one attribute in common. They were more difficult to integrate into the normal routine of my day. To complete them would mean going out of my way. I would be required to spend time that I did not want to relinquish.

Ironically, once I decide to do one of these lingering items, it usually takes very little effort at all.

Here is a solution that I have implemented that has helped me accomplish tasks that otherwise may just sit around for awhile. I schedule time in my calendar every other week specifically to tackle old action items. During this time I will review anything that is older than 2 weeks. If it no longer requires my attention, I delete it. If it requires action, I do it.

So far, it has helped in two ways. It has eliminated things that I no longer needed to do, and secondly it has kept some minor things from becoming urgent. If you have some tasks that are dragging you down by staying on your list too long, give this a try. It may help.

 

One Simple Method to Keep Your Mind Clear of Clutter

A few weeks ago I read the article, Are You Lacking Focus? This Easy Week-Long Ritual Can Help. It suggested a method for keeping clutter from my mind and improving my focus. I tried it.

Here is the suggested practice. Set an alarm to sound every four hours.  At the alarm, write down anything in your head that is not directly associated with the task at hand.  Become aware of that thought. Be ready to eliminate it from your mind the next time you recognize it.

So I set the alarm on my phone for 8 am, noon, 4 pm, and 8 pm. After one day, I decided to adjust to more conducive times, 8:45 am, 12:45 pm, 4:45 pm, and 8:45 pm. I used blank 3×5 cards to capture my thoughts every time the alarm sounded.

Did it work? My result was mixed. Some alarms went off when I had no cards or a pen. Some alarms occurred when I was in a meeting. I even had an alarm sound when I was in the checkout lane of the grocery store. After a week, I had recorded only 60% of the scheduled times.

I found it strange that this exercise didn’t give any guidance on what to do with your written thoughts. The article assumed that these thoughts didn’t need attention. That they should be banished. But what if they were important? I think a better practice would be to review the cards from the previous day, and add actions or projects as needed to your own planning system.

As a practitioner of David Allen’s Getting Things Done for over 15 years, I already have a habit of capturing my thoughts. This exercise had some redundancy with the Getting Things Done system.

Did it help? I liked the alarms every four hours as a reminder about capturing ideas and staying focused. Going forward I plan to keep the 8:45 am, 12:45 pm, and 4:45 pm alarms on weekdays. This simple addition to my day will enhance the systems I already have in place.

Overall, this exercise was enjoyable, and a learning experience. If you struggle with focus (squirrel!), maybe this exercise can give you insight into how you may improve.

 

The Same Old Thing Is Not the Answer

It was a Wednesday evening. My wife and I had just returned from our church. Elliot, our Cocker Spaniel, usually greeted us at the door every time we came home, but tonight he didn’t. We found him lying on his bed, and we could tell immediately something was not right.

I checked the house to see if he had gotten sick, or for any clues about why he was not behaving normal. I found nothing.

We could tell Elliot did not feel well, but did not know why. He wasn’t injured. So we assumed, that he probably ate something that he should not have. We let him rest and kept our eye on him.

About midnight, he started having problems breathing. You could tell he was in pain. We didn’t think it warranted an emergency trip to the vet in the middle of the night, so we just tried to comfort him the best we could. Eventually, he went to sleep, and so did we.

The next morning my wife left for work, and I was left with Elliot. He seemed to be getting better, but was still moving very slow.

Day by day he improved and after a couple of days we thought he had recovered. Then he had a relapse. Then after a few more days he recovered again. Then another relapse.

We finally decided to take him to see a doctor. They kept him for several hours, and ran multiple tests and x-rays. They found a slight injury to his back, and prescribed pain killers, and rest.

Let me tell you, it it hard to get a dog to rest. Yes, dogs rest all the time. Their energy comes in blasts. It was difficult to keep him quiet, when he was ready to play.

It took a few more weeks, but eventually Elliot fully recovered. We will never know what caused his injury. We think he must have fell from the sofa when he was sleeping.

Before he went to the doctor, the weeks we spent trying to let him heal himself were ineffective. Every time he started to feel better, he would become active and aggravate his injury.

There are many situations in life that I find the same. When we are not succeeding, and we keep trying to solve the problem the same way, we end up making the situation worse. 

For Elliot there was a simple solution. For most of us, sometimes the change we need is not so obvious. But we know if we keep doing the same thing, we are not going to solve our the problem. Many times we need to get outside help, just like Elliot did.